


Confiteor

by inamorata_jones



Series: Confessional [1]
Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 00:53:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamorata_jones/pseuds/inamorata_jones
Summary: Post-6x12. Liz tries taking some responsibility for once.





	Confiteor

She’s waiting for him when he comes back from Havana, a tense shape in the gloom of that evening’s safehouse.

 

“It’s only me, Red,” she says quietly.

 

He wonders at the odd note in her voice, but pushes it aside. She’d hugged him breathless the last time they’d seen each other, grinning like a little girl as she congratulated him again on his freedom. She’d been happy. Surely nothing could have changed that much in forty-eight hours.

 

“Lizzie! A pleasure.” He drops his hat on the sideboard in the hall, steps into the living room and turns on the lamp, babbling a bit to keep them both at ease. “It’s a shame you decided not to come with us. The weather was gorgeous, we saw some wonderful exhibits at the Museo Nacional, and the _food_ —”

 

He stops. She’s sitting perfectly straight in the middle of the old sofa, her hands twisted together in her lap. There’s a gun on the table in front of her—not FBI issue, he sees at a glance; a Browning Hi-Power, its handle pointed toward the armchair she’s pulled opposite her. Her eyes skitter to his face, then away.

 

“Sweetheart?” He keeps his voice low, gentle, knowing better than anyone how quickly she’ll flare and bolt if she’s spooked. “Is everything all right?”

 

“Will you sit?” she asks, flicking her wrist at the empty chair. “I just—I need to tell you something.”

 

He nods, settles himself, waits, trying to ignore the sick certainty that he already knows what she’s going to say. She still won’t look at him.

 

“It was me,” she says eventually. “Dembe agreed not to tell you, but it was me who put you in prison. I didn’t want to, not after the UN—you can be such a _good_ man—but Jennifer said it was the only way we’d be safe while we tried to find out who you were, why you’d stolen our father’s identity, and I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought. That you’d get out of it. That Cooper would get you out of it.”

 

The sound of her shuddering breath is incredibly loud in his ears.

 

“When they beat you, when I saw you in that, that ugly little uniform, those chains, I knew I’d made a mistake. But I needed to know why you’d lied to me. I killed people trying to get information on you, I lied to Cooper, I dragged Ressler into all kinds of shit, because it was important. Had to be. If it didn’t matter . . .”

 

His voice, when it comes, sounds cold and alien, even to him. “So that’s what you wanted. I should have known better than to think you’d share a last meal with me simply because you cared.”

 

“Red. That isn’t—isn’t right.”

 

“Right? No. But then you’ve never worried about that as much as you’ve pretended to, have you?” He lets the silence hang for a moment. “So enlighten me: why didn’t you ask? I might have told you. I was in a sentimental mood.”

 

She worries compulsively at her scar. “Because it _didn’t_ matter, that’s the thing. Ressler was right: you were just a man who loved me, and we were family, and I’d been stupid enough to throw it all away again.”

 

He sees, when she scrapes together the courage to look him in the eyes, that she’s been crying for some time. Her lovely face is a ruin of tear tracks and snot. He wishes he could summon compassion, but that’s out of reach. He’s nothing but tired. He may never again be anything but tired. “A man runs out of patience for betrayal, Elizabeth,” he says.

 

She makes a small noise that might be agreement.

 

“And unlike you, I’ve never been dishonest about who I am or what my motivations are. I told you the day we met that everything about me was a lie. I proved I would do what I needed to in order to keep you safe. And I expected you to be sufficiently intelligent to understand what _that_ information was worth.”

 

Suddenly, he wants the satisfaction of knowing he’s scored a hit, even a small one. But she only nods and scrubs her face with her sleeve to clear it.

 

“I know, Red. I don’t expect forgiveness. I almost got you _murdered_ because I couldn’t see what was in front of my face. But I do want you to know that I’m so, so sorry.”

 

Standing, she scoops the Browning off the table and holds it out to him with a shaking hand.

 

“Just make it quick, okay? And make it clean, not like you did with Mr. Kaplan. I don’t want to be in pain, and I don’t want to have to wait, to be wondering when you’re going to . . .”

 

He can’t get air. “You—”

 

“Don’t blame Dembe; he only kept quiet because I begged him. And look after Agnes, please? I should have left her with you in the first place.”

 

“You think I want to _kill you_?”

 

Incredibly, she offers him a smile—a bright, tender thing, as full of affection as any he’s ever been granted. “I know what you do to traitors, Red,” she says softly, steady now. “It’s all right.”

 

The constriction in his chest is so severe he thinks he might be dying. He doesn’t want to know what she can read in his face.

 

“When you came to see me,” he starts after a minute, grabbing desperately for the one thing that might save them both, “and we had that _terrible_ meal, you said you loved me.” He swallows so hard he’s sure she can hear it. “Did you mean it, Lizzie? Or were you only showing kindness to a dying man?”

 

“Of course I did. I do. I love you.”

 

Somehow, he gets to his feet, takes a lurching step toward her. “Put the gun down, Lizzie,” he croaks, “just put it down, and don’t ever—”

 

He hears it drop to the table, and then she’s in his arms, mumbling something into his shirt, the both of them shaking so much they can barely stand. “My darling,” he says, pressing his lips to her hair. “My brave, brilliant, idiot girl. Thank you for telling me.”


End file.
